Bodycote International and its chairman, Joe Dwek, are two of the more successful remnants of the ill-fated Slater Walker empire of the 1970s. They owe much of their good fortune to a management team led by chief executive John Chesworth, who has successfully re-engineered the group over the last 18 years or so. The last of the original textile interests – a bullet-proof vest manufacturer – was dumped earlier this month and through a series of acquisitions Mr Chesworth has created one of the biggest independent metal heat treatment groups in the UK. That helped it yesterday to reveal a 46 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to pounds 27.6m for 1996. If analysts’ forecasts of pounds 46m for the current year are right, the figure will have multiplied by over 10 times in 11 years.

The market has taken time to recognise these achievements, but, after a 32.5p rise to 770p yesterday, the shares are nearly double their price 18 months ago, putting them on a forward multiple of 19.
This sort of heady rating is normally accorded companies at the leading edge of technology, yet Mr Chesworth is the first to acknowledge that his is neither a hi-tech or highly priced line of work, describing Bodycote as a plant hire business that sells time on its furnaces. But its equipment has proved itself more efficient and more reliable than others.Heavy capital investment, set to almost double to pounds 37.6m this year, has helped Bodycote grab a significant share of the market for heat treating other manufacturers’ components in every industry from aerospace to electric hand tools, giving them hardness and durability There is still plenty more to go for. Bodycote reckons it has less than a fifth of an outsourced UK market put at pounds 100m, while three-quarters of heat treatment work is still carried out in-house.Despite the modesty of Mr Chesworth’s description, Bodycote has some fairly whizzy businesses. Its commanding position in hot isostatic processing takes it into high-integrity applications like aero-engine blades.The outlook for the 18 per cent of the group’s sales into the currently booming aerospace industry is set fair, while automotive, a further 22 per cent of the business, is looking reasonable, at least in the Anglo- Saxon countries.

But the main short-term excitement at Bodycote remains acquisition-led.Last year it spent pounds 112m, including debt, on 10 purchases, culminating in Brukens of Sweden, making it one of Europe’s biggest heat treatment groups. Around three-quarters of last year’s profits growth came from acquisitions and analysts expect Brukens to chip in over pounds 10m to this year’s figures. It is targeting heat treatment and laboratory testing companies in the US and talking to some, backed by pounds 20m of net cash which could give it up to pounds 80m in firepower.Well clear of last November’s rights issue at 600p, the shares are a firm hold as one of the select band of high-growth engineering companies.JJB figures set more recordsThe quoted sports retailers have been having a high old time of it recently. Buoyed by the increasing popularity of branded sportswear and helped by the fragmented ownership of sports shops, the likes of JJB Sports, JD Sports and Blacks Leisure have been enjoying huge profits growth and soaring share prices.JJB Sports, the chain founded by former footballer Dave Whelan in 1971, confirmed the growth trend yesterday with another bumper set of figures. Profits were 58 per cent ahead at pounds 20.3m for the year to 31 January.

Even more impressive were the like-for-like sales figures, which grew by an astonishing 38 per cent over the year and are also up strongly in current trading. However, the latest 11 weeks are being set against a weak comparable period for last year when bad weather affected sales.JJB is certainly an impressive story and the shares have now risen more than sixfold since the flotation in late 1994. They jumped another 5p yesterday to close at a record high of 429p. It now has 167 stores and opened 25 new superstores over the year and a further eight since the year-end.